N.S. to city: Pass the salt
North Smithfield looks to piggyback onto Woonsocket’s anti-ice solution
WOONSOCKET – It was just a few weeks ago that the Department of Public Works began manufacturing brine to pre-treat roads ahead of snowstorms, but now the city is poised to turn the salty liquid into cold, hard cash.
After learning of the city’s recent investment in brine-processing equipment, neighboring North Smithfield wants the city to supply its public works department with the stuff and is willing to pay 30 cents a gallon for it.
The City Council and North Smithfield’s Town Council are both scheduled to vote Monday night on separate legislative measures that would make the deal official. D’Agostino ironed out the plan with North Smithfield Public Works Director Ray Pendergast.
D’Agostino said Pendergast reached out to him after reading a news story about the city’s roughly $70,000 investment in the SnowEx Brine Pro 2000 brine-making
machine and other equipment, including a storage silo and truck-mounted tanks and spreaders. Located at the River Street public works depot, the SnowEx grinds granular road salt – sodium chloride – into a fine powder and mixes it with water. It’s capable of churning out concentrated, liquid brine at the rate of about 10 gallons a minute.
Unlike rock salt, which is often applied after snow has already started to fall, brine is sprayed on the pavement a day or more ahead of forecasted snow. D’Agostino says the practice is standard operating procedure for most of the state-level departments of transportation in the Northeast, including Rhode Island, because brine increases snowplowing efficiency by preventing snowpack from turning to ice and sticking to roads. Brine is also mixed with road salt to help activate the granular product more quickly.
The local DPW used brine through most of the city for the first time after the sea- son’s first plowable snow earlier this month, according to D’Agostino.
“It worked excellent,” he said. “It’s a great, great product.”
North Smithfield Council President John Beauregard says he’s in favor of buying brine from the city and believes most of his counterparts on the council will support it as well.
“I have no objection to Mr. Pendergast buying the stuff,” said Beauregard. “I just want to make sure they have enough to keep us fully supplied when we need it. Other than that I’m all for it.”
In addition to enhancing the effectiveness of snowplows, brine is also more environmentally friendly than granular sodium chloride and will enable the city to combat snowstorms with less sand. That translates into greater efficiencies for springtime cleanups of roads and storm drains, where a lot of sand spread by the city ends up. Sand often clogs storm drains and has to be cleaned out.
Brine is essentially pre-melted granular salt, which is why it works so well, according to D’Agostino. Road salt in its nuggety, solid form doesn’t start to work until it starts mixing with melting snow.
“In the brine state you’ve already broken it down,” says D’Agostino. “You don’t have to wait for it to liquefy because it’s already liquefied.”
With the SnowEx machine, the city is capable of producing more than enough brine to supply North Smithfield and the city according to the public works director. He says he wouldn’t be surprised to hear from other communities in Greater Woonsocket that are interested in buying some.
“Inquiries are welcome,” D’Agostino says.